American Roulette Odds, Payouts and House Edge Explained
By Halfonred Editorial · · 3 min read
Figures checked against the rules of the live table.
Roulette is the easiest casino game to learn and one of the easiest to misunderstand. Every bet looks different — a single number paying 35 to 1, red or black paying even money — but on an American wheel almost all of them carry exactly the same house edge. Once you see why, you can pick bets for how you want to play, not because one looks like a better deal.
The American wheel
An American wheel has 38 pockets: 1 through 36, a single zero, and a double zero. The 0 and 00 are green and lose every outside bet — red, black, odd, even, high, low, dozens and columns. The Halfonred table uses this double-zero layout.
The house edge comes from a gap between true odds and what the table pays. A straight-up bet on one number wins 1 time in 38, so a fair payout would be 37 to 1. The table pays 35 to 1. That gap works out to 2 ÷ 38, or 5.26%, and the same gap is built into almost every bet on the layout.
Payouts and probabilities
| Bet | Numbers covered | Pays | Chance to win | House edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Straight up | 1 | 35 to 1 | 2.63% | 5.26% |
| Split | 2 | 17 to 1 | 5.26% | 5.26% |
| Street | 3 | 11 to 1 | 7.89% | 5.26% |
| Corner | 4 | 8 to 1 | 10.53% | 5.26% |
| Top line (0, 00, 1, 2, 3) | 5 | 6 to 1 | 13.16% | 7.89% |
| Six line | 6 | 5 to 1 | 15.79% | 5.26% |
| Dozen or column | 12 | 2 to 1 | 31.58% | 5.26% |
| Red, black, odd, even, 1–18, 19–36 | 18 | 1 to 1 | 47.37% | 5.26% |
The one bet to skip
The top line covers 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3 and pays 6 to 1. Fair odds on a five-number bet would be 6.6 to 1, so the payout is short by more than the other bets on the board. Its house edge is 7.89% — half again as expensive as anything else on the layout. If you want to cover the zeros, bet 0 and 00 as a split instead, at the standard 5.26%.
Single zero versus double zero
A European wheel removes the double zero, leaving 37 pockets and a house edge of 2.70%. That difference is real: the same total wagered loses about half as much over time on a single-zero wheel. On an American wheel the trade-off is simple — the game plays the same and costs more per spin, so size your bets with that in mind.
Roulette systems
Martingale, Fibonacci, d'Alembert and every other betting progression change the shape of your results, not the edge. Doubling after a loss turns many small wins into an occasional very large loss, and table maximums stop the progression before it can recover. Each spin is independent. A wheel that has landed red eight times in a row is no more likely to land black on the ninth.
How to play it well
- Pick bets for the experience you want: even-money bets for longer sessions with smaller swings, inside bets for rare big hits.
- Avoid the top line. Every other bet costs the same.
- Decide your total spend before you play and stop when it is gone.
- Ignore the history board when choosing numbers. It records the past; it does not predict.
No decision at the roulette table changes the edge. If you want a game where your choices do, blackjack basic strategy brings it down to about half a percent, and the pass line with free odds gets craps under 0.4%.